


We Solemnly Swear: A Collection of Marauders Headcanons

by minervamylove



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M, Marauders, Marauders-focused, Pansexual Sirius, gay remus, will inevitably mention series or next gen characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-16 19:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3500306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minervamylove/pseuds/minervamylove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The chapters in this piece will probably be very short, each just a glimpse into the life or the thoughts of a character. This fic will update sporadically as it's not really a single cohesive story, more random musings as they come to me.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Lily's Patronus

**Author's Note:**

> The chapters in this piece will probably be very short, each just a glimpse into the life or the thoughts of a character. This fic will update sporadically as it's not really a single cohesive story, more random musings as they come to me.

_Lily Evans Potter is not a doe._ This is what Harry will never know about his mother: that she is not a doe and she never has been. Harry never laid eyes on his mother's Patronus, not even as an infant; his bright young family had no time to experience Dementors before that fateful Halloween. Harry has seen a doe Patronus, yes- but it wasn't Lily's, and sometimes he forgets that. 

Severus Snape had a doe Patronus. Why? Because he forgot, a little bit more every day, who Lily Evans Potter was. From the time he first learned the charm, just a boy of fifteen in his Defense Against the Dark Arts Class, to the time when he cast it in Dumbledore's office, spitting with rage and loss, Severus Snape had Lily all wrong. How, in hindsight, could he have gotten her right? Their childhood bond was already years behind his adolescent mind, and as every new Hogwarts term began she slipped farther and farther through his fingers. He watched her slow progression into the arms of James Potter with bated breath. Severus loved Lily and hated James, and by the end of his time in school he could no longer distinguish between the two feelings. _Love Lily. Hate James. Love Lily, hate James. Love Lily hate James. Love hate James Lily. Lovehatelilyjameslovehate._ It all became one sentiment, a singular ache somewhere behind the left side of his ribcage.  _  
_

Severus Snape knit Lily and James together so tightly in his own mind that he could no longer see their separateness- not that he was looking, anyway. It wasn't as if he came to their wedding, watched Lily as she danced so fast and furious that James could only struggle to keep up. It wasn't as if he followed them to Godric's Hollow and saw how inside the Potter house, the walls were all different colors because Lily and James could never agree on a single shade of paint. It wasn't as if he had borne witness to the most serious fight the young couple ever had, when Lily wanted to visit her sister and baby nephew in hospital and James wanted to stay as far away from Lily's hateful Muggle relations as possible. It wasn't as if he saw Lily visit them anyway, balancing a tea tray on her head to make baby Dudley laugh while Petunia looked away. If Severus Snape had seen any of this, he would have known, without a doubt, that Lily Evans Potter was not the meek and gentle doe, following quietly behind James' stag. 

But Severus Snape didn't see any of it. He didn't know anything. He made Lily up inside his head, he loved a woman that didn't exist, and his Patronus reflected that. 

This is hardly the end of the world. But when Lily Luna Potter is fifteen, all legs and wrists and red hair and ankles just like her grandmother, and casts her first Patronus, no one will think to marvel at the sleek, mischievous fox that bounds from the tip of her wand.


	2. Remus's Reasons

Remus Lupin is one hundred percent sure-as-can-be sure that he has an exact number of zero chances with Sirius Black. Always of a reasonable and mathematical mind, he has taken this sureness, broken it down, laid it out in numerical order, and tattooed it across his heart, his ribs, and his finger bones so as never to forget. 

 _Reason One:_ He has seen the way that Sirius looks at Marlene McKinnon.

 _Reason Two:_ There was the time that Sirius loudly and gleefully enumerated the many physical charms of Lily Evans, shortly before James gave him a warning thump on the head with his broomstick handle. 

 _Reason Three_ : Remus, of course, is nothing like Marlene McKinnon or Lily Evans. 

 _Reason Four:_ The first three reasons don't matter anyway, because Remus is a CAPITAL-W-WEREWOLF and therefore will never have a chance with anybody. 

There's nothing personal about his situation, Remus reminds himself, it's just math. Four very good reasons plus six years of your best friend not being in love with you does not equal the happy ending that you're looking for. One remaining school year plus seven NEWT examinations that need studying for does not equal enough time for things to change that significantly. So Remus continues doing one of the many things he does well: he keeps quiet. If he can't help but admire the way that Sirius's broad chest fills out the Ramones t-shirt he insists on sporting beneath his robes, at least he can keep those thoughts to himself. If he must quietly mourn the loss of Sirius's shaggy locks every time that Mrs. Potter forcibly cuts his hair, at least he can laugh along with James and pretend that he doesn't yearn to see long black locks framing that rugged, handsome face. 

What Remus likes best of all is to watch Sirius on a broomstick. He doesn't have the same grace, the same skill, that James brings to flying, but Sirius rides a broom with such a sense of purpose that it leaves Remus just the littlest bit breathless. His flying style is all about fast, direct lines and turns so sharp that they leave no room for elegance. Whenever he pauses to hover, Sirius's arm muscles strain against the broom in anticipation, and when he leaps forward into action once more, something in Remus's stomach will leap too. 

The problem with Remus's math is that there are so many more wonderful things about Sirius Black than there are reasons that he can never have him. There are Sirius's looks, of course, those handsome Black features and that strong body. There's the loyalty that might well have landed him in Hufflepuff if he wasn't such a daring, headstrong, reckless _idiot_ of a Gryffindor. There's the genuine joy in his eyes whenever Mrs. Potter wraps him in one of her hugs, and the sadness that lingers when she lets go. There's Sirius's goddamn  _pride,_ the way he works himself to the bone at odd jobs over the summer rather than accept a single Knut from his lineage-obsessed parents. That pride. Remus loves it desperately, and he will never tell a single soul. 


	3. Sirius's Kisses

The first time that Sirius Black kissed another bloke, he'd been sixteen and more-than-slightly drunk on Firewhiskey, and Lily and Marlene had dared him to, the she-devils. The recipient of the kiss had been Prongs.  _Prongs,_ of all people. Kissing your best mate was about as romantic as a pocketful of frog spawn. Not that Sirius was looking for romance when he gave in to the girls' badgering. No, sir. Sirius Black didn't go in for blokes, and what was the point of romance anyway? If it wasn't a quick shag with Marlene or Mary, no strings attached, then Sirius just wasn't interested. And that went double when Prongs was involved. 

"Was that a _lick_ , Padfoot? You kiss like a dog, how bloody appropriate."

"Just trying to clean your dirty face a bit, mate," Sirius responded with a wolfish grin. James seemed to think that this was terrifically funny, howling with laughter along with Wormtail and the girls. Remus had been watching the whole spectacle with slight disapproval, but Sirius's response coaxed a smile from his exhausted features. That boy, Sirius thought before the Firewhiskey caught up with him and erased the rest of the evening, always looks so  _tired._

The second time that Sirius Black kissed another bloke, it was the summer before seventh year and it had more to do with his parents than anything else. Sirius's utter rage and despondency about his familial situation tended to come and go in waves; he would push it deep down inside of him until it absolutely had to burst forth like one of those Filibuster's fireworks that he and James liked to set off from the Astronomy tower at Hogwarts. The boy in question had been a muggle, and Sirius had met him in a dodgy bar. It was perfect. Hooking up with a muggle, a muggle  _boy_ at that, was the most un-Black-like thing he could possibly do, he was certain of it. It didn't hurt that the boy's hands had been strong and sure, tangling in his dark hair and gripping his leather-clad arms, or that his neck had been soft and sweet under Sirius's lips and teeth. This, he decided, was the best way of getting back at his parents, at his past, that he'd found yet. 

Both Remus and James had been waiting for him at the Potters' when he returned.  _Bugger_. He'd forgotten that Remus would be arriving that night. Prongs always crowed and cackled upon hearing of Sirius's conquests, but Remus was different. There was always this look in the other boy's eyes, of disapproval and disappointment, when he heard about the latest girl with whom Sirius had trysted in a broom closet. Sirius always hated disappointing Remus; in fact he'd lived in utter fear of it ever since that ill-conceived prank on Snape in their fifth year. Remus was  _good,_ far better than any of the other Marauders (and certainly better than Lily, the cunning ginger pirate). He shouldn't have to put up with Sirius's exploits. So when James asked what he'd gotten up to, he did not tell his friends about the new feeling of male lips upon his own. 

"I had a pint in a pub," Sirius lied. "That's all." 

The third time that Sirius Black kissed another bloke, and the fourth time, and the fifth and sixth, had been inconsequential. They had been boys with no names, faceless strangers just like that first muggle. They had been mouths and hair and hands, and the sixth time, more. They were markers on a map that led to somewhere Sirius couldn't guess. He wanted to get there, though; he chased that unknown destination like a high. He still didn't tell the others. Remus had returned home by that point, and it was laughably easy to keep things from the ever-oblivious Prongs. So Sirius spent the rest of that summer stringing boys together like a necklace, putting them together like they were pieces of a puzzle he had to complete before September-- a mop of sandy brown hair here, a set of gray eyes there. When Sirius boarded the Hogwarts Express with James on September 1st, he still didn't know what the picture on the puzzle box had been. Whatever objective he'd been trying to achieve, he had failed. 

Sirius sat in a compartment alone. Usually he had James and Peter to keep him company while Remus was up in the prefect's carriage, but James had, either by some miracle or by the grace of Dumbledore's failing wits, been appointed Head Boy, and Peter was off somewhere making a desperately pathetic attempt to woo Dorcas Meadows. So Sirius tapped his black-painted nails on the compartment window, and then turned to magically scorching small holes into his already-ripped jeans, not caring when the spell singed the skin underneath as well. 

"Are you trying to set fire to the train?" Remus hadn't changed into his school robes either, and his tan jumper brought out the blond undertones in his hair. "Because if so, your methods aren't very effective." 

"Remus." Sirius set down his wand, his mouth strangely dry. "Shouldn't you be up the train?" 

"James has it handled." Remus sank down onto the seat across from Sirius. "Which, believe me, is not a sentence I thought I'd ever say. But he wants to impress Lily, so he's taking his new duties very seriously." 

Normally, Sirius would have snorted. But he still didn't understand why Remus was _here_. Prongs taking something seriously may have sounded like a very amusing show, but that was Prongs. Remus never neglected his prefect duties. 

Remus shrugged, and it seemed to Sirius like the nonchalance of the movement was far too studied to be real. "James and Lily have other prefects to help them. I don't have any other friends sitting alone and setting fire to their clothes." 

Sirius's face warmed, and he was sure that, had he been able to examine his reflection, he would have been greeted by an embarrassing flush. What was  _wrong_ with him? Why was he blushing at  _Remus,_ of all people? Remus, distracted momentarily as he pulled a book from his schoolbag, Remus, who was now asking if he was all right with a look of concern in his gray, gray eyes... 

Sirius froze. Sirius swallowed. Sirius _understood._  "Rem," he began cautiously, not bothering to answer his friend's question, "How come you haven't ever had a girlfriend? You know Dorcas has been gone on you since third year..." 

Now it was Remus's turn to blush. "I don't fancy Dorcas," he muttered, opening his book and hurriedly burying his nose in it. 

"Who do you fancy, then? Emmeline? Emmeline would have you." 

Remus slammed the book shut just as quickly as he had opened it. "Leave it, Sirius. It's not a question of who would have me. And if it were..." He stopped, as if he had been about to give something away. 

Sirius's pulse quickened. "But-- if you were to fancy someone-- it would definitely be a girl, then?" 

Remus's long fingers tightened on the book, and that was all the answer that Sirius needed. "Sirius, I don't understand..." 

But Remus didn't get to finish his sentence, because the seventh time that Sirius Black kissed another bloke, it was a sandy-haired, gray-eyed, teenage werewolf who kissed him right back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I know that James and Lily weren't dating yet in sixth year, but I like to think that they'd gotten over their fifth-year animosity enough to play nicely when in groups.


End file.
